The Knowing (eBook)

Chapter One

Five Points, New York, 1866

I dipped the needle into the pot of dark-brown ink and pressed its tip against my ankle, spreading the skin taut as a drum. My hand followed the line of the star, the familiar sharp prick followed by the smallest tap of ink settling, letting me know I had gone deep enough and could remove it with a pulling sting. This was the soothing rhythm of my days; pain and blood and ink mixed together.

‘How’s it coming?’

I winced. Just hearing his voice made me punch the skin too deep and red blood mingled with the ink. I wiped it clean, the brown pigment staining the palest skin on the inside of my ankle. I looked up at Jordan.

‘Nearly done.’

‘Hurry up,’ he grunted. ‘He wants his cards done after.’

He nodded to the man sat shirtless in front of him, receiving a sailor’s tattoo on his shoulder. He looked like a side of beef on the turn, red sunburnt skin curdling with pale sweats as his fingers dug into the splintering arm rests of the chair. A first-timer, that much was clear, but like all navy lads he’d not said a word of complaint.

I turned back to my foot. The star wasn’t my favourite, but it wasn’t my worst. My self-made marks were still shaky, but at least they were mine. Jordan had the run of my back, my chest and neck, my legs, my arms and my ass but he had little interest in my stomach (said the skin was too flabby) or my feet. He didn’t like working on bony crevices. If someone requested these delicate nooks he’d set me to it, saying it was ‘a woman’s work’. As far as I knew, I was the only woman tattooist in New York City, so what he really meant was it was work he was too lazy to do.

‘Now, Florence.’

I knew a warning tone when I heard it. I wiped once again, applying my handmade witch hazel balm, and dropped my needle in a pot of rum for cleaning. I produced my black velvet card bag from my dress pocket and pulled my chair closer to the sailor. He stank – they both did: Jordan of stale smoke and spilled whisky, a bitter scent tinged with a nauseating sweetness that permeated our linen, my dresses, our shop; whereas the sailor smelled like a man who’d not washed for twenty days and had spent every moment of them sweating. I tried to think of the buns I’d bought earlier from the Dutch bakery two doors down. I imagined the fresh honey scent of the dough, breathed through my mouth, and spread the tarot deck on the table between us.

‘I heard about you down at McSorley’s,’ the sailor said. His voice was higher than I’d expected. Looking at him properly, I thought he might not even be eighteen. ‘You’re a real mystic, then?’

‘She is.’ Jordan’s dark eyes followed my hands as I shuffled. ‘Providence brought us together a long time ago.’

Providence could also be called a tall man with a loping stride and a slow smile picking a little girl who could read tarot out of a ragtag pack of foundling gypsies at the Old Brewery, and promising to take her away from the slums. Pity he didn’t mention at the time that ‘away’ only meant adjacent. I stared at the back of his head as he bent to his work, hating the thinning, greasy hair that lay there. Lying bastard.

‘Now you work for the Irish?’ the sailor asked, shooting a wary glance at the clover stamped on the back of Jordan’s hand. I had a similar one on the side of my right breast.

‘Nah.’ Jordan hated the suggestion he worked for anyone but himself. ‘But they make good neighbours.’

Bullshit. The Irish gang, the Dead Rabbits, were not good neighbours and Jordan and I were as thoroughly in their pocket as every other business that backed onto Mulberry Street. He gave them gang signs, the dead rabbit or the clover, I gave them readings and they took a cut and chose not to bash our heads in.

‘How’s it work then?’ The sailor watched the cards sailing through my fingers, mesmerised. Customers liked the sleight of hand. I cut the deck and laid the cards before him.

‘Turn the top three.’

He did so. I read for him, saying the phrases I knew pleased Jordan the most. If I could work in that a tattoo would get this poor sucker a woman, so much the better. It barely mattered what I said, though. Now that I was sitting close, the sailor’s eyes never left my skin, skimming the edges of the short-sleeved, low-cut dress Jordan preferred me to wear in the shop.

‘You’ll be lucky on Friday if you place a bet—’

His eyes found the tiger on my left shoulder.

‘You’ve got a good chance at success for whatever you try your hand in—’

They travelled to the Chinese dragon on my right wrist as I pointed at the Sun card.

‘You’re going to draw someone to you, a lover of great desires and passion—’

They settled on the wheel of fortune below my collarbone. I didn’t need to look up from the Page of Pentacles to feel Jordan’s anger throbbing nearby. If the boy looked away from my chest, we might be able to move on.

‘These all your work, then?’ he asked Jordan.

I stiffened.

‘All mine.’ Jordan’s voice was dangerous and soft as velvet. The sailor didn’t notice.

‘Never seen a girl with so many like that.’ His eyes were still on my wheel. I started to sweat. ‘Never seen a girl with any, apart from people in the West Indies. She lets you do it?’

‘Of course. She likes it.’

I had liked it. In the beginning I would have done anything for him; he was so handsome and kind, and he worked so carefully and gently, whispering how the pain would soon be over and how beautiful I’d look. He’d followed it with kisses and caresses until I didn’t feel the difference; pain and love, it was all together. Then, later on, he’d wanted to ink me in places people would see. That’s when the problems had started.

‘Likes it?’ The sailor’s eyes were wide. ‘Good God, if I could find me a woman who liked pain!’

This boy doesn’t know what he’s doing, I thought, he doesn’t know what he’s costing me. If I could have, I’d have stared him dead in the eye and told him to shut his fucking mouth but looking at him was the worst thing I could do. I stared instead at the sweet-faced page boy on the card, his pink skin grubby now from my fingers, his cup yellow and the sea behind him blue as ink. I wondered where I would have to go to see water that blue.

‘Say, you don’t…’

I felt it before he said it, that this pause before he spoke would ruin my day.

‘… lease her out, do you?’ He sounded so hopeful, I could almost have laughed. He had no idea the man standing beside him had a gun under the floorboards and a fighting reputation. I held my breath.

‘Not for sale.’ Jordan’s voice was so sharp now even the boy noticed. I felt his stiffening posture in front of me and stilled. ‘Go upstairs, Florence.’

Didn’t need to tell me twice. I grabbed my cards and my coat and fled up the sloping stairs, letting the bedroom door click behind me. I waited beside it, listening. He was either going to kill him, or take all his money and kick him out. He might finish up the tattoo before he did either; Jordan never liked to leave a job incomplete. I found I didn’t care much what happened. For me, the end result was the same. It was always my fault. I sat on my side of the grimy mattress and closed my eyes. There was no way out of it. I had stopped trying to find one long ago.

I shivered. The late February wind was whistling through the window, the frame cracked and rotting away. It was always cold upstairs. Even when Jordan would finally heft his drunken, shit-smelling form under the blankets beside me after an evening of drinking, his boiling body wasn’t enough to keep me warm. I pulled my coat on, tugging a squashed bun out of the pocket. I pressed it to my nose, the shiny brown surface of it silky on my skin. They were better fresh, when the hot smell of them was so thick you could taste it, but I bit down happily, the stretchy yellow dough inside melting on my tongue.

I pulled out my cards and cut them, staring idly out of the window as I felt the worn edges in my fingers. I did this out of habit, whenever I was on my own. Jordan didn’t like it. It made me feel homey, or as homey as a child who grew up wild in Five Points could feel, the repetitive slice and shimmy of cards in my hands bringing my mind to a quieter place where the world slowed down. I let the tingling grow at the back of my neck and my breath became unhurried. I watched the cards. The Two of Cups. The couple standing on the card lifted their tiny inked goblets to toast one another, the ink lines around them expanding to fit their movement. Partnership. Union. Then the little figures upturned their cups, spilling the golden ink to reveal the blanched white paper underneath. The Two of Cups reversed, I supposed, though I had not moved the card. A broken relationship. No guesses what that was about. I could see the shades of other meanings pressing into the corners of the room, spirits lingering in the crevices of the rotting window. The chill was intensifying, my breath growing...